Recently my best friend and I joined the Crochet Guild of America. Prior to this we were unaware of the Knit & Crochet Show. One of the perks of belonging to CGOA is you get to attend the conference for free. Can you imagine? This show has been going on for years and we didn’t know about it. Please allow me to give a brief overview.
The Knit & Crochet show is a conference that has many activities. Classes are offered with some of the best known crochet designers, there are fashion shows, crochet competitions, an awards ceremony, and oh yes, and plenty of shopping! There is ample time to make new friends, and meet new people from all over the world. I met one woman who flew all the way from Australia.
When my friend Julia and I first walked into the marketplace, Red Heart, along with Crochetville was the first booth we saw. Just look at all the lovely yarn!!!
Since this was our first show we didn’t really know what to expect and we didn’t sign up for any classes. We were basically there to check it out and shop. We stopped at the Red Heart booth and did a make and take with the new SCRUBBY yarn. We each made a scrubby and also bought some yarn, since Scrubby yarn won’t be available in stores until fall.
After we did our make and take we walked the showroom floor. There were oodles and oodles of yarn, and we tried our best to stick to our budget. We also went to view all the entries in the crochet competition, and we cast our vote for “Best of Show.” After roaming around for a bit, we went back to our hotel room to take a nap. We wanted to attend the awards show and also see if we could meet Lily Chin, (she was being inducted into the Crochet Hall of Fame), and had heard rumblings about crocheting in the hotel pool sometime later on in the evening.
After our nap we headed to the awards banquet and saw some really outstanding crochet. We also had the opportunity to hear Lily Chin speak. Once the award ceremony was over, we went back to our room to change. Tammy Hildebrand of Crochet Lava organized the photo shoot in the pool. It was a lot of fun, but most people decided not to jump into the pool, because it was 10pm. There ended up only being 5 of us, but we still had fun nonetheless.
The next day Julia and I went back to the show, and met some of our favorite crochet designers and attended their book signings. Here are some of the people we met: Tammy Hildebrand, Jenny King, and Margaret Hubert. My Mom, Julie Smith, came to visit us for lunch.
All in all it was a wonderful show, we made new friends, saw a lot of interesting yarn, and accessories, and were thankful we joined the Crochet Guild of America. We’re already planning on attending next years conference, which will be in South Carolina in July 2016. Until then Happy Crocheting!!! Here’s one more photo of my yarn haul from the show.
Janice Ogata 